About

This pioneering site is where new journalism meets oral history. It contains fresh and archive long-form audio interviews with interesting people, largely uncut and free to the user for non-commercial use. Please also visit our extensive archive of print and photo posts at the main Generalist site here.

Tags

Links

Friday, August 10. 2007

Michael Gray is best known as the author of ‘Song and Dance Man’ the first ever book-length critical study of Bob Dylan’s work, published originally in 1972. Over the years it has grown and developed to the point where ’Song and Dance Man III’, published in 2000 and reprinted five times in the years since, is now 918pp long including the index.

Not content with this mountainous achievement, Gray has also authored the equally monumental ‘The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia’, a treasure trove of facts, opinions and insights, and has now turned his considerable talents to a fascinating and detailed biography of the blues singer Blind Willie McTell, best known most as the composer of ‘Statesboro Blues’, a song that afforded The Allman Brothers Band a million-selling record.

Combining extensive and unparalleled genealogical research into McTell’s origins (much of it conducted by his wife food writer Sarah Beattie) with a number of long trips to the Southern states, Gray has revolutionised our understanding of Blind Willie about whom precious little was previously known. In addition, he sets McTell in his historical and social context and brings to life the prejudice and barbarity that still existed in the Southern states during his lifetime.

Michael Gray, in person and in print, has a unique style very much his own, as you will hear on this hour-long interview, recorded at the office of his publishers in Soho Square.

‘Hand Me My Travellin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell’ is published by Bloomsbury (£25.00)

Tuesday, June 19. 2007

Ramblin’ Jack and John May.

Upstairs at the Lansdown Arms, Lewes 22 February 2005

Photo: Mick Hawksworth

Recorded at the Thistle Hotel, Barbican, London. It was a bitterly cold day and Jack had just flown into town with his daughter for a short but intense British tour and to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Radio 2 Folk Awards. I was interviewing him for a piece in The Telegraph. We sat at a small table in the hotel restaurant and Jack regaled me with stories and songs. About Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. About sailing ships, cowboy poets and rodeo clowns. About Jack Kerouac and adventures in Ireland. Settle back and enjoy.